Damoshe – gemara, rif, rambam, rosh, tur, beis yosef, shu”a, nosei keilim say it’s assur. Some achronim say that individual women who are on a high level are allowed to. It’s a very, very simple straight forward sugya. Rav Moshe Feinstein has a teshuva where he says that he shouldn’t have to even write such a teshuva because you can’t get much simpler.
I looked up the article – he quotes not a single source that says that learning gemara is permitted. Not one. He starts out by quoting the same sources that I mentioned, and a few more, snd says “it seems that it’s assur”, then continues to explain the bais yaakov movement and the chidush of the chofetz chaim that learning torah nowadays is allowed because the alternative is going off the derech, and that the Jewish home no longer provides adequate Jewish education for women.
He omits in his quote the rambam’s very, very crystal clear distinction between torah shebichsav and Torah she baal peh. The rambam says that the former is bedieved and the latter is assur gamur.
Jachter continues to then deflect and hint out that only the satmar rov qualified the chofetz chaims heter to apply only to tanach and halacha. That is an insidious tactic – first ignore the rambam’s distinction, and then attribute it to the satmar rov and therefore dismiss it because “that’s just satmar”
His other sources are just rabbi yoshe ber’s grandson trying to justify what his grandfather did with attempts at avoiding the clear halacha
He mentions what I said about exceptional women, and he says that some say that a woman may learn gemara on her own – that might be true according to some, since the gemara speaks of teaching, not learning. The rambam however would not hold of it.
This was very helpful for me, it shows the lengths of intellectual dishonesty that has free reign.
You make it sound like he’s saying, well, some rishonim and achronim hold it’s ok, and some hold it’s assur, so we’ll just pasken like those”
All he said was that the controversial rov associated with MO did it, and so did his brother and grandson…. shkoyach.